Man United, Liverpool, Arsenal players among those to receive an early Christmas gift | OneFootball

It’s Christmas, isn’t it? Just about? And what does Christmas mean? That’s right, recriminations and family in-fighting. But also gifts and presents.

The more traditional footballing application is for defensive and goalkeeping howlers at this jolliest time of the year to be called early Christmas presents. Guglielmo Vicario has certainly embraced his designated role as this year’s Banter Santa.

But there’s another way Christmas gifts can manifest. There are certain players who’ve just received one in the shape of an unexpected chance to re-assert their claims on a more significant role over the weeks ahead after recent events.

Hugo Ekitike (Liverpool)

To be clear from the outset, we’re not saying anyone here is wishing injury upon a team-mate. Obviously not. But one man’s setback is always another man’s opportunity, and the injury Alexander Isak suffered in the process of scoring for Liverpool at Tottenham over the weekend has certainly cleared Ekitike’s path for the foreseeable.

At the very least, Isak’s apparently lengthy absence provides clarity for all concerned. The framing of the striker situation at Liverpool now becomes entirely different, with even the decision to spaff so much of their resources (time and financial) on two strikers suddenly looking less mad than it has for most of the season to date.

Ekitike is now the first-choice striker for an extended period of time, and in truth it’s a deserved status based on the relative performances of him and Isak across the season. On every metric outside sunk-cost, Ekitike appears the more deserving recipient of a lengthy shot at really establishing himself as the number one number nine. Isak isn’t even a palindrome, for goodness’ sake.

Mason Mount (Manchester United)

Christmas is a time for miracles, and truly we witnessed one at Villa Park on Sunday. No, not Aston Villa’s seventh straight Premier League win, an event now entirely expected by all, but a soft-tissue injury for Bruno Fernandes.

This is quite simply an event that does not occur. So alien was it that neither Bruno nor his manager even seemed to realise he’d pulled his hamstring and did nothing about what was a very obvious situation until half-time as Bruno limped around for 10 minutes in baffled confusion at this unusual sensation in the back of his leg.

Bruno’s reliability is legendary. He has never missed more than two Premier League games in a row for Man United. He has been at the club for 221 Premier League games and played in 212 of them. If he didn’t occasionally get himself suspended, those numbers would be more insane still.

He has played well over 3000 minutes of Premier League football in each of his five full Premier League seasons. The maximum a player can rack up is 3420.

So what is about to happen is simply unprecedented. Manchester United are going to play a significant number of Premier League games at what is even for them in their quiet little season a busy period. We truly don’t know what that looks like.

What it definitely is, though, is a huge opportunity for Mason Mount. He has proved rather nicely over recent weeks that he can play alongside Bruno Fernandes, something that was previously extremely doubtful.

But now he has the chance to prove he can actually step in as United’s string-puller-in-chief in the absence of a man who is quite simply never absent.

The ramifications of how that pans out are pretty significant. For Mount, for United and quite conceivably for England. A quick look at how Thomas Tuchel has operated thus far as England manager suggests he won’t need much encouragement to turn to a player he already knows well.

Brennan Johnson (Tottenham)

The whimsical point to make here is to wonder just how much of a gift getting more chances to perform for Thomas Frank’s Tottenham really is. The prospect of a January escape really might have been more beguiling.

But it does look less likely now with Frank now having to desperately find some way to restore some kind of attacking threat to his team in the upcoming absence of the suspended Xavi Simons.

The Dutchman has been far, far from perfect in his first four months at Spurs. But he has also been far, far from the biggest problem during an increasingly gloomy time that does now look like it really could be a miserable sleepwalk into actual relegation trouble in a season where, unlike last year, such a thing actually exists for real.

Spurs have won only eight games in all competitions since Xavi arrived from Germany late in the window. Xavi has started every one of those eight games.

If that record of being unable to win without him remains in place after the next three games, it is surely inconceivable that Frank remains in place. And the relegation threat will be very, very real indeed.

Johnson has been one of the biggest losers from Ange Postecoglou’s departure. He has a particular set of skills that, more than just about anyone else in the Spurs squad, were ideally suited to Angeball.

His ability to arrive late into space on one side of the penalty area as a cross arrived from the other was often underappreciated. There’s a bit of Sterling Lite about it; it doesn’t necessarily look that impressive even when it’s very effective.

But if it was as easy as it looks, then more players would do it wouldn’t they? Unfortunately, creating chances isn’t really something Frank’s Spurs do. Even more so when Xavi is absent. So Johnson might be getting the most dubious of gifts; a chance to impress under conditions that set him up to fail.

That, though, brings us back to the very start. At least it might hasten his departure from this godforsaken club, and that might be the best gift of all, in a way.

Gabriel Jesus (Arsenal)

We kind of think it might actually end up being Kai Havertz who gets the greatest gift, assuming that the Arsenal medical team’s prognosis of a return late this year or early next is accurate. And for goodness’ sake, when has the Arsenal medical team’s prognosis ever been off?

But he’s not back yet, and we must accept the small chance he won’t be for a while. And there is also simply no way we’re grown-up enough to pass up the opportunity to bring a player literally called Gabriel Jesus into a feature we’ve given a lazy Christmas-based hook.

Viktor Gyokeres may have scored the winning goal from the penalty spot at Everton, but he remains Floppy McFlopface. His goal returns aren’t disastrous, but nor are they anywhere near sufficient to make up for the sheer paucity of his wider contribution. These are not Erling Haaland numbers. They’re not even Richarlison numbers.

Jesus is certain to start against a suddenly porous Palace in the Carabao this week and has a clear opportunity to stake a claim to start against Brighton after Christmas. It is not at all outlandish to suggest Gyokeres could be Arsenal’s third-choice striker by February.

Carlos Alcaraz (Everton)

Has struggled to make a significant impression this season since his loan move from Flamengo became a permanent one. But there are just a couple of encouraging signs.

He came on at half-time after a disastrous opening 45 minutes against Newcastle and things at least got a bit less sh*t from there.

And after replacing the injured Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall in the early stages of defeat against Chelsea, he retained his starting spot against Arsenal. Could now get the chance to turn a season of frequent but generally brief cameos into something more substantial in the games ahead, most of which will be against teams who are not Chelsea and Arsenal.